iMasticate

Embracing the lazy holiday spirit, our group of six people grabbed dinner at George’s Meze in Subiaco before heading to the cinema to watch The Hobbit. We opted to share meze dishes, which are appetiser-sized portions.

Greek White Wine ($28)

We ordered a couple of bottles of Greek white wine to share. The wine pictured above was quite pleasant, while the other one was very unusual and not to my taste. The restaurant is not BYO and the wine was marked-up, adding about $10 to each person’s share of the bill.

In the Beginning ($16)

This curiously-named menu item consisted of Turkish bread, pork crackling, olives, and dukkah. It was my first experience of dukkah and I liked the mix of herbs, nuts, seeds, and spices. I recently had my wisdom teeth pulled out, but I still stubbornly munched on the crackling.

Combination of bread and Greek dips with feta and olives (four dips for $29)

This was probably the most boring dish of the evening. Our chosen dips were skordilla, taramasalata, hommus, and melitzano salata. The hommus was too thick and lumpy, so we had to spread it with a knife, and it just tasted like mashed chickpeas (where was the garlic?). The other dips were also quite bland. For roughly $30, I expect way more from bread and dips.

Left to right - Saganaki ($16), and Crumbed Button Mushrooms ($14), and
Potato and Zucchini Balls ($15)

We ordered a number of deep-fried bits, but we shared each dish between six so it was not too heavy. I really enjoyed the crumbed mushrooms stuffed with feta, olives, and sun-dried tomatos. However, charging $7 per mushroom is a joke. The potato and zucchini balls served on feta were not very impressive.

Close-up shot of grilled Greek kefalograviera cheese

The saganaki included grilled Greek kefalograviera cheese and pickled figs. The chewy texture of the cheese reminded me of haloumi. Unsurprisingly, I found this dish a very tasty mix of sweet and salty.

Left to right - Sauté selection of chorizo sausages ($16) and Beef Keftedes ($15)

Everyone was annoyed to see that our “chorizo sausages” included roughly four pieces of chorizo hidden by boring pieces of Woolworths-standard sausages. There was not enough red chorizo to go around and that made me pretty grumpy.

I am not a huge fan of meatballs. The keftedes with kefalograviera cheese in tomato relish were pretty unappealing to me.

Shallow Fried Calamari Spirals ($18)

The stand-out dish was the squid sprinkled with nostinimi dust (Greek herb mix). Our waiter suggested we upsize the usual $15 dish so we could share a larger serving plus a garden salad - good tip! The kitchen did not bother to remove the stringy inside membrane when preparing the squid, which is pretty lazy for an upmarket restaurant.

The outside courtyard is cute and a breeze kept us cool during the evening. Staff were attentive, friendly, patient, and helpful. I felt comfortable giving feedback that the chorizo dish needed more chorizo, so I hope that things change in the future. Honestly, I won’t return any time soon because the food is not great and the prices are too steep.

Summary 
Likes: great service

Dislikes: small expensive portions, unimpressive food

Value for money: below average

Overall: would prefer to visit other restaurants in Subi

Contact
Address:
26 Denis St
Subiaco WA

(08) 9388 1585

www.georgesmeze.com.au